07/26/2023
My colleague Kevin Vogt is writing a series of posts called "The Sound of Silence," and I thought I might share these and relate them to our experience at our parishes in KCK. Our school is connected with three parishes. One is Our Lady and St. Rose, a community that worships in a church dedicated in 1921. I do not serve that church, and they have their own vibrant community and music ministry. Acoustically, it may be the best of our trio - an exceptionally beautiful church both visually and aurally.
The present Blessed Sacrament Church, built in neo-Gothic style, held its first Mass on Christmas Day 1926. With classic proportions, it is a very easy space in which to sing. Note that when it was built, there would have been no amplification system; all projection would have needed to be natural. The old elevated pulpit would have aided in projecting the homily, but the priest would still have needed to speak up and enunciate clearly. There is one element from a later renovation that is harmful to the natural acoustics - the red carpet, which is a significant sound absorber, which especially comes into play when the church is full, as it often is for Spanish Masses (when the church is empty, the hard pews help reflection, whereas human bodies are major sound absorbers). It is looking quite worn, and will eventually need to be removed, with either a new hard floor, or restoration of the old wood floor underneath. When that can happen, the acoustics should be exceptional.
Then there is Christ the King Church, the church adjacent to the school where we have "school" liturgies and the largest English Mass in our communities. It is an aural challenge. The present church was solemnly blessed in 1955, which was an interesting time in church history. At that time Masses were still in Latin according to the old rite. There was a growing concern for intelligibility of the spoken word, and amplification systems were coming into prominence, but a proper theology of the importance of congregational participation in the liturgy had not fully materialized. The church building is more or less along traditional lines, with classic proportions in a traditional shoebox shape, but the desire to clearly understand the spoken word produced decisions to kill much reverberation. The result is a church in which it is challenging to sing with any confidence. The main culprits are twofold: (1) the absorbent tile on the ceiling, and (2) the thick padded pews. The environment makes it necessary to amplify music, but there is a problem with this: it is easy to amplify a solo singer (with some expense); it is possible but not ideal to amplify a choir (with greater expense); it is next to impossible to electronically enhance congregational singing (with major expense). This is exactly the opposite of what our priorities in the liturgy should be. You may be tempted to think that because we rely on antiphons for parts of the liturgy sung by either the choir or a cantor, that our priorities would reflect that. That is not true; the most important song of the Mass is by the congregation, in effect the principal choir, which sings all the dialogues and acclamations, with the pinnacle being the great Sanctus (Holy, holy, holy) sung by all. Our first step is to engage a professional with expertise in church acoustics; then comes contracting work. If you are concerned about the intelligibility of the spoken word, there is a happy medium, and sound systems have advanced to the point where speech can be discerned even in highly reverberant spaces. I have some general sense of what to do, but the exact nature and cost of such an endeavor is way beyond my pay grade! Anybody setting foot in the church can tell that it is in need of renovation (I feel sorry for those sitting on those well-worn damaged pews). Of course, that takes a lot of $, which is in short supply. So for now, until we can mount a project of that nature, pray for us, that our children may overcome their inhibitions and without reservation give glory to God.
HEAR THE FULL SONG: https://open.spotify.com/track/18PLnOGXMUX6r75i5XtjVt?si=824cfaa8f4c8423bSUBSCRIBE and hit that bell: https://bit.ly/2OgWtuASUPPORT my vi...
